Date of Award
2025
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE)
Department
Electrical, Computer, and Biomedical Engineering
First Advisor
Sungho Kim
Abstract
The frequency comb generator is an essential component in the readout of superconducting detectors. This component is responsible for generating the resonant frequencies necessary to detect photon interaction with the detectors. This component however has not received the much needed attention in terms of readout systems optimization. Conventional implementations rely on either inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) engines, which scale poorly in power with increasing frequency resolution requirement but allow flexible tone updates, or lookup tables (LUTs), which demand large memory for high frequency resolution.
Microwave Kinetic Inductance Detectors (MKIDs) are superconducting detectors which have gained significant interest for cryogenic astrophysical instrumentation due to their high sensitivity, intrinsic multiplexing capability, and scalable fabrication. However, their simplified detector architecture shifts complexity to the readout electronics, making the development of compact, low-power frequency comb generators especially valuable. The design of the compact frequency comb generator targets applications involving MKIDs which typically detect photons in the submilliter bands.
In this thesis, I present the design and hardware realization of a compact frequency comb generator. The design has been verified on an Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) using the Xilinx's RFSoC ZCU111 evaluation board. The architecture consumes less than 5% of FPGA resources and less than 5 Watts of power with the capability of handling multiple independent channels of the compact frequency comb generator on the evaluation board. These results demonstrate the potential of this approach to enable scalable, energy-efficient MKID readout systems for large-format detector arrays in next-generation cryogenic experiments.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Danso, Frank Atobrah, "HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION OF AN EFFICIENT FREQUENCY COMB GENERATOR FOR MICROWAVE KINETIC INDUCTANCE DETECTORS" (2025). Open Access Master's Theses. Paper 2679.
https://digitalcommons.uri.edu/theses/2679